


I heard the wind inside me crying

by aphrodite_mine



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, Captivity, Clones, F/F, Pseudo-Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-08
Updated: 2013-11-08
Packaged: 2017-12-31 20:43:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1036158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aphrodite_mine/pseuds/aphrodite_mine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>She tastes copper and sees only white.</i>
</p>
<p>What happens when the subject becomes aware?</p>
            </blockquote>





	I heard the wind inside me crying

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thistidalwave](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thistidalwave/gifts).



> Thanks to my partner in crime for the read-over!

"Yes, but I've got a different theory, now."   
\-- Cosima Niehaus, "Parts Developed in an Unusual Manner"

\--

Forever until the surface, she is swimming. Alison's muscles burn, shudder, and spasm. There is sunlight filtered through the deep, and perhaps, in another life, that light would reach her -- a hand would reach her and pull her free. In this one, though, she opens her mouth and lets the sea pour in.

\--

The bed moves almost imperceptibly, but it is enough to unglue her eyelids. She blinks slowly -- light, yellow -- and again -- black pants, tight -- and once more -- familiar hand on a cell phone, flipping it open and closed -- before Alison is awake enough to put the pieces together. She is horizontal on a bed that smells like industrial cleaner. The sheets pulled to her chin are scratchy, cheap. The tiny shudder she feels, that must be Sarah. Sarah, who is tapping one foot up and down impatiently, sitting next to Alison on the bed, her body radiating a low warmth. 

They are in a motel room. The kind of place that can be rented in blocks of weeks instead of days. The kind of place Donnie would joke about staying just to see her dagger-eyes. That Donnie. What a joker. What an _effing_ joker.

She doesn't remember coming here, but the holes are growing. Growing darker. She's surprised that she's not surprised.

"C'mon," Sarah mutters, snapping the phone open once more. As if that will make it react any faster. Sarah's like that; needing something to happen. Needing to _make_ something happen. 

"Where--" Alison's voice comes out like gravel. "Where's Kira?"

The question feels natural. Well, as natural as any of this. _How's the weather? Can I feel your pulse, just to check? Tell me a story. Tell me just one more._

Sarah's head turns sharply -- Alison _remembers_ those eyes -- and perhaps, it is only surprise that makes her answer truthfully. Funny, Alison knows all of Sarah's tells. "With Delphine," she says, setting the phone next to her thigh on the bed. They both look at it for a moment, questions projected to a screen that still refuses to light.

"And you're here."

"With you, yeah." Sarah picks at the fraying embroidery that decorates the bedspread. "I lost a coin toss," she says, briefly flicking her gaze to Alison. Something there, in her eyes, in the tightness around her mouth makes Alison smile. The action feels unfamiliar, strange, _wrong_. "Oh," Sarah says, face falling, her fingers gripping the blankets suddenly in a way that makes Alison think she must be holding something back. 

\--

Sleep grabs at her with sharp hands. Though she tries to fight it off, Alison goes under once, twice more before the damn phone goes off and yanks Alison awake right from the gut, up her throat and she's screaming and Sarah's there with cool hands "Quiet, alright? They'll fucking hear you." Her hand brushes over Alison's skull and meets her spine flat, pulling Alison close. She's warm. "I've got you. That was just the phone. Fe says we made it okay." The words could be another language, landing thick and clunky in corners of the room. But she stops. Alison stops screaming and shudders until Sarah's absorbed the aftermath and the bed is still.

\--

"I'll be back soon," Sarah promised but once the door shuts behind her, they descend. Alison can feel the metal locking her in place, the cold burn against her wrists rubbed raw, her ankles, her neck. They don't touch her with skin, just latex and ice. And needles and knives. Her skin becomes like water -- accepting everything and reflecting back whatever it is they want to see.

They don't ask questions, and soon she forgets to give answers they'd rather find in data. Alison's throat dries. Sometimes, she chokes on tears that she doesn't know she's crying.

And she knows, she _knows_ that they don't have her any more, that she is _free_ , that she is miles away but when the door shuts behind Sarah, it slams open one hundred times -- each bringing faceless, handless bodies to gather around her silent and miles tall. Alison shrinks into the bed, feeling her lungs collapse. She tastes copper and sees only white.

There's no way of knowing how long it lasts. There is no time here, only bodies shifting around her, and the dimming in each blink. 

"Hope you like PB and J!" one of them says.

No, that's not right.

Alison tastes salt and wants to be sick. 

"Making due with limited resources and all. Probably not the five-course meals you're used to," they continue, beginning to sound familiar, tugging at strings and tendons and veins at something Alison _knows_. "Rather, _were_ used to."

Suddenly, Alison can breathe. The air rushes back to her lungs in a gasp and she makes her lips form the name. "Sarah?" she whispers, still frozen, still tied to memory.

She moves effortlessly through the captors, the torturers, the _researchers_ and her warm fingers on Alison's skin destroy the last vestiges of restraint. She must see something in Alison's broken eyes, in her sunken face because Sarah's untouchable air evaporates. Alison has seen this face before, when Kira was lost and Sarah was broken -- broken the worst any of them thought they might be -- but broken Sarah is still solid Sarah, still _warm_ Sarah, still… safe Sarah. 

Sarah, who isn't Beth or Cosima or whoever Alison used to be. Sarah the punk, the mother, the black sheep. Sarah pulls Alison close to her, so close that it should be suffocating. Instead, Alison breathes deep for maybe the first time. (Sarah smells like leather and smoke and strangers.) "It's okay, Alison," she says, and her voice doesn't waver at all. It makes Alison want to believe. It makes her believe that she will, someday. "You're safe. I've got you."

And she does. And she's got her -- _Beth's_ gun -- tucked in the back of her jeans and her arms around Alison. The tears don't stop for a long time, but Sarah doesn't let go. How did Alison ever almost write her off?

Sarah isn't an angel, and somehow, that makes it better.

\--

Alison wakes up cold. Sarah has left her alone in the queen bed, tucked neatly under the covers while she curled up awkwardly in the armchair. 

A quick panic flutters to life, and Alison wants to wake her, beg her to come back. But she's sick -- so _fucking_ sick -- of needing everything. She can take care of herself. At least, she used to. She can remember it like a dream, almost. 

Still, her heartbeat slows and Alison calmly unfolds herself and pulls the covers from the bed. She drapes the blankets over Sarah's body and sits next to the chair, pulling the rest around herself. It is surprisingly easy to sleep that way, half on the floor, half clinging to Sarah's knee.

\--

"I'm not an _idiot_ , Fe," Sarah is saying. Alison isn't supposed to hear this, or she guesses that she isn't because Sarah waited for the shower to start running before she even dialed the phone. "Look, I know you're nearby and it can't be _that_ much of a risk to just--"

Alison is leaning against the bathroom door, wood finish only slightly rough under her fingertips. The room is cold despite the shower steam behind her. She wasn't planning on eavesdropping but neither of them have been alone for longer than the span of a shower or trip to the toilet and Alison knows that the loaf of bread won't last much longer, and she knows that Sarah's doing this for _her_ \-- doing so much -- but that doesn't make her any less terrified that she'll emerge from the bathroom, clean and damp, and find the room empty.

So she listens and avoids catching a glimpse of her body in the mirror.

"It isn't to _her_ , all right? Jesus, you… you haven't seen her eyes, Fe."

Her eyes. They're discussing _Alison_ \-- who else would they talk about -- and the thought makes her skin itch. She looks, then, because hell, if they have to deal with it -- with her -- then so does she. 

Dark circles have dug graves under her eyes. She thinks she recognizes herself, some echo, even with the sharper cheekbones that come from being fed intravenously and only what her body needed to survive. Hah. _Survive_. Dark fuzz is starting to grow over her skull. Alison doesn't _look_ like a survivor. She doesn't even look alive.

"I can't leave her. I won't."

\--

Sarah squeezes her hand, and Alison looks up sharply, briefly aware that she's been hunched over watching their feet on the tile. "You're shaking," she says. It should be a warning. A message coded: perk up, you're attracting attention. Instead, all Alison hears is concern. She wants to laugh, or cry, or shout, or shove Sarah against the grocery aisle and shake her. _You can't save yourself and save me, too. Don't do it. Don't risk it._

"I'm cold," Alison insists, subconsciously micro-adjusting the terrible wig Fe managed to obtain for them. ("Short notice, ladies. Best I could do.")

Sarah reaches for a pop-top can of ravioli and drops it in Alison's basket. "I'd offer you my hoodie…" She lets the sentence hang, because they both know what would happen if she took off her disguise. Alison, more than any of them knows it.

"I'll manage," Alison says, knowing that she shaking won't stop until they're home -- at the motel room -- and safe. Safety is an illusion, she knows, but it's one she'll cling to until it's gone again.

\--

Once they're back, Sarah keeps shooting Alison worried glances. 

She's placed the wig on the bedside table and is slowly scratching her head, struggling to deaden the itch and reassure herself in the process. _There. You're here. You're Alison._ "I'm okay," she says, feeling far more defiant than the words sound.

Sarah's finished organizing their purchases (and a few items she lifted while Alison handled the tender) and now dedicates her whole self to frowning in Alison's direction. "Yeah, but you're _not_. Not really, anyway."

"A vote of confidence."

"That's not how I meant it, and you know it."

Alison sucks in a long breath. "And how did you mean it?"

Sarah looks like she's about to say something -- about to say a thousand something's -- but instead crosses the room to Alison's side and takes a shaky hand in hers. "I've never--," she stops, thinks. "I don't think anyone would call me a good Mom. I'm not great at taking care of people, and I--"

"You're doing fine," Alison says, wanting to pull back, suddenly afraid of this. This, the only thing she's dared to want. Touch that doesn't kill.

"It's not enough," Sarah whispers. She ghosts fingertips over Alison's cheek, neck. "You're still afraid."

The audacity, Alison knows, is what pushes her over. Pushes -- _pulls_ \-- her against Sarah. She smells like dime laundry soap, like dirt after a rainstorm, and a little bit like honey. They are frozen, forehead to forehead, nose to identical nose. Alison doesn't kiss her then, but she knows that she could.

"I was scared long before any of this," Alison answers, breathing in the shared air. "Sometimes I think I've been afraid my whole life." 

Long minutes pass before Sarah draws a breath and speaks. "You're safe now, yeah?"

"Yeah."

\--

The flip phone rings and Sarah answers, automatically adjusting the settings to speaker phone. "Alison's here too," she says, by way of greeting.

"Hey," Cosima says, and Sarah must hear it too because she and Alison look at one another and Sarah immediately takes Alison's hand. Something is wrong.

"Out with it." 

"It's time to move."

Alison squeezes and Sarah doesn't pull her hand away. "We can be ready in an hour."

There's a pause, and then the small wet sound of Cosima moistening her lips. "An hour will be fine. Fe will call."

Both parties hang up, the unsaid threats hanging in the air like electricity. It would be prudent to rise, to begin sorting and packing up whatever shells of their lives they can. Instead, Alison shivers. Sarah moves her palm over the peach fuzz that is growing out into baby down. She leans close and kisses her, slow and strong. Strong enough for both of them.

"We'll be fine, Alison."

"I'm not scared."

They both know it's a lie, but it is enough. Sarah kisses her again, a semicolon introducing the next clause.


End file.
